Marketing wisdom or commonsense

I've just finished reading Why We Buy: The Science of Shopping. It looks at human behaviour and the retail environment and attempts analysis of how human chopping behaviour works and why. To this how the store environment can work with or work against this behaviour. They call this the conversion rate, from someone wandering into a store to someone leaving the store with a purchase.

My friend Firman and I were talking this week about this in terms of getting clients. You don't just wait for them to come to you. You have to get out there and talk and meeting and get infront of them. If you're looking for someone who might want to become a Christian, you want them to comein and stick around. We want a conversion rate as well yet we are passive.

In retail it seems to be well known that men will wander into a store, look for information in brochures or displays, collect and generally leave without consulting or talking to anyone. Women are the opposite looking for advice and to consult someone who knows something about what they're looking for.

I realized this has huge ramifications for churches how they welcome men and women. When it comes to welcome desks, information points, and welcome personnel there are enormous changes needed in how things are done, if done at all. Churches are generally dominated numerically by women. Why? My boss once asked whether it's because the words of the songs (read excessive emotionalism) or the relevance of the messages or the packaging/environment is wrong? We asked this on one of our staff training modules why university Christian groups tend to be monocultures, particularly no "jocks"? So what is the purpose of the church? to become monocultures because that is what is most successful or to become reflections of the Kingdom of God?